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TED Talks, Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity

Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity

I am a writer.

Writing books is my profession but it's more than that, of course. It is also my great lifelong love and fascination. And I don't expect that that's ever going to change. But, that said, something kind of peculiar has happened recently in my life and in my career, which has caused me to have to recalibrate my whole relationship with this work. And the peculiar thing is that I recently wrote this book, this memoir called "Eat, Pray, Love" which, decidedly unlike any of my previous books, went out in the world for some reason, and became this big, mega-sensation, international bestseller thing. The result of which is that everywhere I go now, people treat me like I'm doomed. Seriously -- doomed, doomed! Like, they come up to me now, all worried, and they say, "Aren't you afraid -- aren't you afraid you're never going to be able to top that? Aren't you afraid you're going to keep writing for your whole life and you're never again going to create a book that anybody in the world cares about at all, ever again? So that's reassuring, you know.

But it would be worse, except for that I happen to remember that over 20 years ago, when I first started telling people -- when I was a teenager -- that I wanted to be a writer, I was met with this same kind of, sort of fear-based reaction. And people would say, "Aren't you afraid you're never going to have any success? Aren't you afraid the humiliation of rejection will kill you? Aren't you afraid that you're going to work your whole life at this craft and nothing's ever going to come of it and you're going to die on a scrap heap of broken dreams with your mouth filled with bitter ash of failure?" (Laughter) Like that, you know. The answer -- the short answer to all those questions is, "Yes.

Yes, I'm afraid of all those things. And I always have been. And I'm afraid of many many more things besides that people can't even guess at. Like seaweed, and other things that are scary. But, when it comes to writing the thing that I've been sort of thinking about lately, and wondering about lately, is why? You know, is it rational? Is it logical that anybody should be expected to be afraid of the work that they feel they were put on this Earth to do. You know, and what is it specifically about creative ventures that seems to make us really nervous about each other's mental health in a way that other careers kind of don't do, you know? Like my dad, for example, was a chemical engineer and I don't recall once in his 40 years of chemical engineering anybody asking him if he was afraid to be a chemical engineer, you know? It didn't -- that chemical engineering block John, how's it going? It just didn't come up like that, you know? But to be fair, chemical engineers as a group haven't really earned a reputation over the centuries for being alcoholic manic-depressives. (Laughter) We writers, we kind of do have that reputation, and not just writers, but creative people across all genres, it seems, have this reputation for being enormously mentally unstable.

And all you have to do is look at the very grim death count in the 20th century alone, of really magnificent creative minds who died young and often at their own hands, you know? And even the ones who didn't literally commit suicide seem to be really undone by their gifts, you know. Norman Mailer, just before he died, last interview, he said "Every one of my books has killed me a little more." An extraordinary statement to make about your life's work, you know. But we don't even blink when we hear somebody say this because we've heard that kind of stuff for so long and somehow we've completely internalized and accepted collectively this notion that creativity and suffering are somehow inherently linked and that artistry, in the end, will always ultimately lead to anguish. And the question that I want to ask everybody here today is are you guys all cool with that idea?

Are you comfortable with that -- because you look at it even from an inch away and, you know -- I'm not at all comfortable with that assumption. I think it's odious. And I also think it's dangerous, and I don't want to see it perpetuated into the next century. I think it's better if we encourage our great creative minds to live. And I definitely know that, in my case -- in my situation -- it would be very dangerous for me to start sort of leaking down that dark path of assumption, particularly given the circumstance that I'm in right now in my career.

Which is -- you know, like check it out, I'm pretty young, I'm only about 40 years old. I still have maybe another four decades of work left in me. And it's exceedingly likely that anything I write from this point forward is going to be judged by the world as the work that came after the freakish success of my last book, right? I should just put it bluntly, because we're all sort of friends here now -- it's exceedingly likely that my greatest success is behind me. Oh, so Jesus, what a thought! You know that's the kind of thought that could lead a person to start drinking gin at nine o'clock in the morning, and I don't want to go there. (Laughter) I would prefer to keep doing this work that I love. And so, the question becomes, how?

And so, it seems to me, upon a lot of reflection, that the way that I have to work now, in order to continue writing, is that I have to create some sort of protective psychological construct, right? I have to, sort of find some way to have a safe distance between me, as I am writing, and my very natural anxiety about what the reaction to that writing is going to be, from now on. And, as I've been looking over the last year for models for how to do that I've been sort of looking across time, and I've been trying to find other societies to see if they might have had better and saner ideas than we have about how to help creative people, sort of manage the inherent emotional risks of creativity. And that search has led me to ancient Greece and ancient Rome.

So stay with me, because it does circle around and back. But, ancient Greece and ancient Rome -- people did not happen to believe that creativity came from human beings back then, OK? People believed that creativity was this divine attendant spirit that came to human beings from some distant and unknowable source, for distant and unknowable reasons. The Greeks famously called these divine attendant spirits of creativity "daemons." Socrates, famously, believed that he had a daemon who spoke wisdom to him from afar. The Romans had the same idea, but they called that sort of disembodied creative spirit a genius. Which is great, because the Romans did not actually think that a genius was a particularly clever individual. They believed that a genius was this, sort of magical divine entity, who was believed to literally live in the walls of an artist's studio, kind of like Dobby the house elf, and who would come out and sort of invisibly assist the artist with their work and would shape the outcome of that work. So brilliant -- there it is, right there that distance that I'm talking about -- that psychological construct to protect you from the results of your work.

And everyone knew that this is how it functioned, right? So the ancient artist was protected from certain things, like, for example, too much narcissism, right? If your work was brilliant you couldn't take all the credit for it, everybody knew that you had this disembodied genius who had helped you. If your work bombed, not entirely your fault, you know? Everyone knew your genius was kind of lame. And this is how people thought about creativity in the West for a really long time. And then the Renaissance came and everything changed, and we had this big idea, and the big idea was let's put the individual human being at the center of the universe above all gods and mysteries, and there's no more room for mystical creatures who take dictation from the divine.

And it's the beginning of rational humanism, and people started to believe that creativity came completely from the self of the individual. And for the first time in history, you start to hear people referring to this or that artist as being a genius rather than having a genius. And I got to tell you, I think that was a huge error.

You know, I think that allowing somebody, one mere person to believe that he or she is like, the vessel you know, like the font and the essence and the source of all divine, creative, unknowable, eternal mystery is just a smidge too much responsibility to put on one fragile, human psyche. It's like asking somebody to swallow the sun. It just completely warps and distorts egos, and it creates all these unmanageable expectations about performance. And I think the pressure of that has been killing off our artists for the last 500 years. And, if this is true, and I think it is true, the question becomes, what now?

Can we do this differently? Maybe go back to some more ancient understanding about the relationship between humans and the creative mystery. Maybe not. Maybe we can't just erase 500 years of rational humanistic thought in one 18 minute speech. And there's probably people in this audience who would raise really legitimate scientific suspicions about the notion of, basically fairies who follow people around rubbing fairy juice on their projects and stuff. I'm not, probably, going to bring you all along with me on this. But the question that I kind of want to pose is -- you know, why not?

Why not think about it this way? Because it makes as much sense as anything else I have ever heard in terms of explaining the utter maddening capriciousness of the creative process. A process which, as anybody who has ever tried to make something -- which is to say basically, everyone here --- knows does not always behave rationally. And, in fact, can sometimes feel downright paranormal. I had this encounter recently where I met the extraordinary American poet Ruth Stone, who's now in her 90s, but she's been a poet her entire life and she told me that when she was growing up in rural Virginia, she would be out working in the fields, and she said she would feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape.

And she said it was like a thunderous train of air. And it would come barreling down at her over the landscape. And she felt it coming, because it would shake the earth under her feet. She knew that she had only one thing to do at that point, and that was to, in her words, "run like hell." And she would run like hell to the house and she would be getting chased by this poem, and the whole deal was that she had to get to a piece of paper and a pencil fast enough so that when it thundered through her, she could collect it and grab it on the page. And other times she wouldn't be fast enough, so she'd be running and running and running, and she wouldn't get to the house and the poem would barrel through her and she would miss it and she said it would continue on across the landscape, looking, as she put it "for another poet." And then there were these times -- this is the piece I never forgot -- she said that there were moments where she would almost miss it, right? So, she's running to the house and she's looking for the paper and the poem passes through her, and she grabs a pencil just as it's going through her, and then she said, it was like she would reach out with her other hand and she would catch it. She would catch the poem by its tail, and she would pull it backwards into her body as she was transcribing on the page. And in these instances, the poem would come up on the page perfect and intact but backwards, from the last word to the first. (Laughter) So when I heard that I was like -- that's uncanny, that's exactly what my creative process is like.

(Laughter) That's not all what my creative process is -- I'm not the pipeline!

I'm a mule, and the way that I have to work is that I have to get up at the same time every day, and sweat and labor and barrel through it really awkwardly. But even I, in my mulishness, even I have brushed up against that thing, at times. And I would imagine that a lot of you have too. You know, even I have had work or ideas come through me from a source that I honestly cannot identify. And what is that thing? And how are we to relate to it in a way that will not make us lose our minds, but, in fact, might actually keep us sane? And for me, the best contemporary example that I have of how to do that is the musician Tom Waits, who I got to interview several years ago on a magazine assignment.

And we were talking about this, and you know, Tom, for most of his life he was pretty much the embodiment of the tormented contemporary modern artist, trying to control and manage and dominate these sort of uncontrollable creative impulses that were totally internalized. But then he got older, he got calmer, and one day he was driving down the freeway in Los Angeles he told me, and this is when it all changed for him.

And he's speeding along, and all of a sudden he hears this little fragment of melody, that comes into his head as inspiration often comes, elusive and tantalizing, and he wants it, you know, it's gorgeous, and he longs for it, but he has no way to get it. He doesn't have a piece of paper, he doesn't have a pencil, he doesn't have a tape recorder. So he starts to feel all of that old anxiety start to rise in him like, "I'm going to lose this thing, and then I'm going to be haunted by this song forever.

I'm not good enough, and I can't do it." And instead of panicking, he just stopped. He just stopped that whole mental process and he did something completely novel. He just looked up at the sky, and he said, "Excuse me, can you not see that I'm driving?" (Laughter) "Do I look like I can write down a song right now? If you really want to exist, come back at a more opportune moment when I can take care of you. Otherwise, go bother somebody else today. Go bother Leonard Cohen. And his whole work process changed after that.

Not the work, the work was still oftentimes as dark as ever. But the process, and the heavy anxiety around it was released when he took the genie, the genius out of him where it was causing nothing but trouble, and released it kind of back where it came from, and realized that this didn't have to be this internalized, tormented thing. It could be this peculiar, wondrous, bizarre collaboration kind of conversation between Tom and the strange, external thing that was not quite Tom. So when I heard that story it started to shift a little bit the way that I worked too, and it already saved me once.

This idea, it saved me when I was in the middle of writing "Eat, Pray, Love," and I fell into one of those, sort of pits of despair that we all fall into when we're working on something and it's not coming and you start to think this is going to be a disaster, this is going to be the worst book ever written. Not just bad, but the worst book ever written. And I started to think I should just dump this project. But then I remembered Tom talking to the open air and I tried it. So I just lifted my face up from the manuscript and I directed my comments to an empty corner of the room. And I said aloud, "Listen you, thing, you and I both know that if this book isn't brilliant that is not entirely my fault, right? Because you can see that I am putting everything I have into this, I don't have anymore than this. So if you want it to be better, then you've got to show up and do your part of the deal. OK. But if you don't do that, you know what, the hell with it. I'm going to keep writing anyway because that's my job. And I would please like the record to reflect today that I showed up for my part of the job." (Laughter) Because -- (Applause) in the end it's like this, OK -- centuries ago in the deserts of North Africa, people used to gather for these moonlight dances of sacred dance and music that would go on for hours and hours, until dawn.

And they were always magnificent, because the dancers were professionals and they were terrific, right? But every once in a while, very rarely, something would happen, and one of these performers would actually become transcendent. And I know you know what I'm talking about, because I know you've all seen, at some point in your life, a performance like this. It was like time would stop, and the dancer would sort of step through some kind of portal and he wasn't doing anything different than he had ever done, 1,000 nights before, but everything would align. And all of a sudden, he would no longer appear to be merely human. He would be lit from within, and lit from below and all lit up on fire with divinity. And when this happened, back then, people knew it for what it was, you know, they called it by it's name.

They would put their hands together and they would start to chant, "Allah, Allah, Allah, God God, God." That's God, you know. Curious historical footnote -- when the Moors invaded southern Spain, they took this custom with them and the pronunciation changed over the centuries from "Allah, Allah, Allah," to "Ole, ole, ole," which you still hear in bullfights and in flamenco dances. In Spain, when a performer has done something impossible and magic, "Allah, ole, ole, Allah, magnificent, bravo," incomprehensible, there it is -- a glimpse of God. Which is great, because we need that. But, the tricky bit comes the next morning, for the dancer himself, when he wakes up and discovers that it's Tuesday at 11 a.m., and he's no longer a glimpse of God.

He's just an aging mortal with really bad knees, and maybe he's never going to ascend to that height again. And maybe nobody will ever chant God's name again as he spins, and what is he then to do with the rest of his life? This is hard. This is one of the most painful reconciliations to make in a creative life. But maybe it doesn't have to be quite so full of anguish if you never happened to believe, in the first place, that the most extraordinary aspects of your being came from you. But maybe if you just believed that they were on loan to you from some unimaginable source for some exquisite portion of your life to be passed along when you're finished, with somebody else. And, you know, if we think about it this way it starts to change everything. This is how I've started to think, and this is certainly how I've been thinking in the last few months as I've been working on the book that will soon be published, as the dangerously, frighteningly overanticipated follow up to my freakish success.

And what I have to, sort of keep telling myself when I get really psyched out about that, is, don't be afraid.

Don't be daunted. Just do your job. Continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that might be. If your job is to dance, do your dance. If the divine, cockeyed genius assigned to your case decides to let some sort of wonderment be glimpsed, for just one moment through your efforts, then "Ole!" And if not, do your dance anyhow. And "Ole!" to you, nonetheless. I believe this and I feel that we must teach it. "Ole!" to you, nonetheless, just for having the sheer human love and stubbornness to keep showing up. Thank you.

(Applause) Thank you. (Applause) June Cohen: Ole!

(Applause)

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Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity Elizabeth Gilbert über die Förderung von Kreativität Η Elizabeth Gilbert για την καλλιέργεια της δημιουργικότητας Elizabeth Gilbert sobre fomentar la creatividad エリザベス・ギルバート、創造性の育成について Elizabeth Gilbert sobre como alimentar a criatividade Элизабет Гилберт о воспитании творческого потенциала Елізабет Гілберт про розвиток креативності 伊丽莎白-吉尔伯特谈培养创造力

I am a writer. 私は作家です。

Writing books is my profession but it’s more than that, of course. 本を書くことは私の職業ですが、もちろんそれ以上です。 It is also my great lifelong love and fascination. それはまた、私の生涯にわたる大きな愛と魅力でもあります。 And I don’t expect that that’s ever going to change. Y no espero que eso vaya a cambiar nunca. そして、それが変わることはないと思います。 E não espero que isso mude. But, that said, something kind of peculiar has happened recently in my life and in my career, which has caused me to have to recalibrate my whole relationship with this work. ||||||strange||||||||||||||||||adjust|||||| Pero, dicho esto, algo un tanto peculiar ha sucedido recientemente en mi vida y en mi carrera, lo que me ha llevado a tener que recalibrar toda mi relación con este trabajo. とはいえ、最近、私の生活やキャリアの中で何か変わったことが起こったため、この作品との関係全体を再調整する必要が生じました。 Mas, dito isso, algo peculiar aconteceu recentemente na minha vida e na minha carreira, o que me levou a ter que recalibrar todo o meu relacionamento com este trabalho. And the peculiar thing is that I recently wrote this book, this memoir called "Eat, Pray, Love" which, decidedly unlike any of my previous books, went out in the world for some reason, and became this big, mega-sensation, international bestseller thing. Y lo peculiar es que recientemente escribí este libro, estas memorias llamadas "Eat, Pray, Love" que, decididamente a diferencia de cualquiera de mis libros anteriores, salió al mundo por alguna razón, y se convirtió en esta gran mega sensación. cosa de éxito de ventas internacional. そして、奇妙なことに、私が最近この本を書いたということです。この回想録は「食べる、祈る、愛」と呼ばれ、以前のどの本とも違って、何らかの理由で世界中に出て、この大きなメガセンセーションになりました。国際的なベストセラーのもの。 The result of which is that everywhere I go now, people treat me like I’m doomed. その結果、今どこに行っても、人々は私を運命のように扱います。 O resultado é que em todos os lugares que vou agora, as pessoas me tratam como se eu estivesse condenado. Seriously -- doomed, doomed! En serio, ¡condenado, condenado! 真剣に-運命、運命! Like, they come up to me now, all worried, and they say, "Aren’t you afraid -- aren’t you afraid you’re never going to be able to top that? 心配しているように、彼らは今私のところにやって来て、彼らはこう言った、「あなたは恐れていません。 Tipo, eles vêm até mim agora, todos preocupados, e dizem: "Você não tem medo - não tem medo de nunca conseguir superar isso? Aren’t you afraid you’re going to keep writing for your whole life and you’re never again going to create a book that anybody in the world cares about at all, ever again? ¿No tienes miedo de seguir escribiendo durante toda tu vida y nunca más vas a crear un libro que le importe a nadie en el mundo, nunca más? あなたは一生書き続けるつもりで、二度と世界中の誰もが気にしない本を二度と作成するつもりはないのではないでしょうか。 Você não tem medo de continuar escrevendo por toda a vida e nunca mais criar um livro com o qual ninguém se importa, nunca mais? So that’s reassuring, you know. Así que eso es tranquilizador, ya sabes. 安心できますね。 Então isso é reconfortante, você sabe.

But it would be worse, except for that I happen to remember that over 20 years ago, when I first started telling people -- when I was a teenager -- that I wanted to be a writer, I was met with this same kind of, sort of fear-based reaction. Pero sería peor, excepto que recuerdo que hace más de 20 años, cuando comencé a decirle a la gente, cuando era adolescente, que quería ser escritor, me encontré con este mismo tipo de , una especie de reacción basada en el miedo. でも、20年以上前に初めて私が10代の頃に人に作家になりたいと言ったことを覚えていたことを除けば、もっと悪いことになります。 、一種の恐怖に基づく反応。 Mas seria pior, exceto pelo fato de eu me lembrar que, há mais de 20 anos, quando comecei a dizer às pessoas - quando eu era adolescente - que queria ser escritor, me deparei com esse mesmo tipo de , tipo de reação baseada no medo. Але було б ще гірше, якби я не згадав, що понад 20 років тому, коли я вперше сказав людям, коли був підлітком, що хочу бути письменником, мене зустріли з такою ж реакцією, заснованою на страху. And people would say, "Aren’t you afraid you’re never going to have any success? そして人々は「あなたが成功することは決してないだろうと恐れていませんか? Aren’t you afraid the humiliation of rejection will kill you? ¿No tienes miedo de que la humillación del rechazo te mate? Aren’t you afraid that you’re going to work your whole life at this craft and nothing’s ever going to come of it and you’re going to die on a scrap heap of broken dreams with your mouth filled with bitter ash of failure?" ¿No tienes miedo de que vas a trabajar toda tu vida en este oficio y nunca va a salir nada de eso y vas a morir en un montón de chatarra de sueños rotos con la boca llena de ceniza amarga de fracaso? " あなたはこのクラフトで一生を過ごすつもりで、それから何も生まれないことを恐れていませんか?あなたは口の失敗の苦い灰で壊れた夢のスクラップの山で死ぬつもりですか? 」 Você não tem medo de trabalhar toda a sua vida neste ofício e de nada acontecer e morrer em um monte de sonhos desfeitos com a boca cheia de cinzas amargas do fracasso? " (Laughter) Like that, you know. (笑い)そうですね。 The answer -- the short answer to all those questions is, "Yes. 答え-これらすべての質問に対する短い答えは、「はい。

Yes, I’m afraid of all those things. はい、私はそれらすべてのことを恐れています。 And I always have been. そして、私はいつもそうでした。 And I’m afraid of many many more things besides that people can’t even guess at. Y tengo miedo de muchas más cosas además de las que la gente ni siquiera puede adivinar. そして、私は人々が推測することさえできない他にも多くのことを恐れています。 E eu tenho medo de muitas outras coisas além das quais as pessoas nem conseguem adivinhar. Like seaweed, and other things that are scary. Como algas, y otras cosas que dan miedo. 海苔のような、怖いもの。 But, when it comes to writing the thing that I’ve been sort of thinking about lately, and wondering about lately, is why? Pero, cuando se trata de escribir lo que he estado pensando últimamente y preguntándome últimamente, ¿por qué? しかし、私が最近考えていて、最近考えていることを書くことになると、なぜですか? You know, is it rational? 理にかなっていますか? Is it logical that anybody should be expected to be afraid of the work that they feel they were put on this Earth to do. هل من المنطقي أن يُتوقع من أي شخص أن يخاف من العمل الذي يشعر أنه تم وضعه على هذه الأرض للقيام به. ¿Es lógico que se espere que alguien tenga miedo del trabajo que siente que fue puesto en esta Tierra para hacer? 誰もがこの地球にやられたと感じている仕事を恐れることを誰もが期待されるべきだというのは論理的でしょうか。 É lógico que alguém deva ter medo do trabalho que eles sentem que foram colocados nesta Terra para fazer. You know, and what is it specifically about creative ventures that seems to make us really nervous about each other’s mental health in a way that other careers kind of don’t do, you know? あなたは知っています、そして、他のキャリアがそうしないような方法でお互いの精神的健康について私たちを本当に緊張させるように思われる創造的なベンチャーについて具体的に何ですか? Like my dad, for example, was a chemical engineer and I don’t recall once in his 40 years of chemical engineering anybody asking him if he was afraid to be a chemical engineer, you know? ||||||||||||||||||||||||||fearful||||||| Como mi papá, por ejemplo, era ingeniero químico y no recuerdo una sola vez en sus 40 años de ingeniería química que alguien le haya preguntado si tenía miedo de ser ingeniero químico, ¿sabes? たとえば、私の父と同じように、化学エンジニアでした。私は彼の40年間の化学工学で一度、化学エンジニアになることを恐れていたのかと尋ねた覚えはありません。 Como meu pai, por exemplo, era engenheiro químico e não me lembro uma vez em seus 40 anos de engenharia química, alguém perguntou se ele tinha medo de ser engenheiro químico, sabia? It didn’t -- that chemical engineering block John, how’s it going? No lo hizo... ese bloque de ingeniería química John, ¿cómo te va? それはしませんでした-その化学工学はジョンをブロックします、それはどうですか? Não - aquele bloco de engenharia química John, como está indo? It just didn’t come up like that, you know? そんな風に思いつかなかったんですよね? Simplesmente não surgiu assim, sabia? But to be fair, chemical engineers as a group haven’t really earned a reputation over the centuries for being alcoholic manic-depressives. ولكن لكي نكون منصفين ، فإن المهندسين الكيميائيين كمجموعة لم يكتسبوا سمعة حقيقية على مر القرون لكونهم مثبطات للكحول الهوس. Pero para ser justos, los ingenieros químicos como grupo no se han ganado la reputación a lo largo de los siglos de ser alcohólicos maníaco-depresivos. しかし、公平に言うと、グループとしての化学エンジニアは、アルコール依存症の躁うつ病であるということで何世紀にもわたって評判を得ていません。 (Laughter) We writers, we kind of do have that reputation, and not just writers, but creative people across all genres, it seems, have this reputation for being enormously mentally unstable. ||||||||||||||||||fields of creativity|||||||||| Nosotros, los escritores, tenemos esa reputación, y no solo los escritores, sino que las personas creativas de todos los géneros, al parecer, tienen esta reputación de ser enormemente inestables mentalmente. 私たちの作家は、作家だけでなく、あらゆるジャンルのクリエイティブな人々にその評判があり、精神的に非常に不安定であるという評判があります。

And all you have to do is look at the very grim death count in the 20th century alone, of really magnificent creative minds who died young and often at their own hands, you know? Y todo lo que tienes que hacer es mirar el recuento de muertes muy sombrío solo en el siglo XX, de mentes creativas realmente magníficas que murieron jóvenes y, a menudo, en sus propias manos, ¿sabes? そして、あなたがしなければならないのは、20世紀の非常に悲惨な死者数だけを見ることです。 E tudo o que você precisa fazer é olhar apenas para a sombria contagem de mortes no século 20, de mentes criativas realmente magníficas que morreram jovens e muitas vezes por suas próprias mãos, sabia? And even the ones who didn’t literally commit suicide seem to be really undone by their gifts, you know. |||||||||||||overwhelmed||||| E incluso los que no se suicidaron literalmente parecen estar realmente deshechos por sus dones, ya sabes. そして、文字通り自殺をしなかった人でさえ、彼らの贈り物によって本当に取り消されているように見えます。 E mesmo aqueles que não cometeram literalmente suicídio parecem realmente desfeitos por seus dons, você sabe. Norman Mailer, just before he died, last interview, he said "Every one of my books has killed me a little more." ノーマンメイラーは、亡くなる直前の最後のインタビューで、「私の本のどれもがもう少し私を殺した」と述べました。 Norman Mailer, pouco antes de morrer, na última entrevista, disse: "Todos os meus livros me mataram um pouco mais". An extraordinary statement to make about your life’s work, you know. Una declaración extraordinaria para hacer sobre el trabajo de tu vida, ya sabes. あなたの人生の仕事についての特別な発言は、あなたが知っています。 But we don’t even blink when we hear somebody say this because we’ve heard that kind of stuff for so long and somehow we’ve completely internalized and accepted collectively this notion that creativity and suffering are somehow inherently linked and that artistry, in the end, will always ultimately lead to anguish. ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||pain しかし、誰かがこれを言っているのを聞いても瞬きはしません最後に、常に最終的に苦痛につながります。 Mas nem sequer piscamos quando ouvimos alguém dizer isso porque ouvimos esse tipo de coisa por tanto tempo e, de alguma maneira, internalizamos completamente e aceitamos coletivamente essa noção de que criatividade e sofrimento são de alguma forma inerentemente ligados e que a arte no final, sempre acabará por levar à angústia. And the question that I want to ask everybody here today is are you guys all cool with that idea? 今日私がここで皆さんに聞きたい質問は、皆さんは皆そのアイデアをクールにしていますか?

Are you comfortable with that -- because you look at it even from an inch away and, you know -- I’m not at all comfortable with that assumption. ||at ease||||||||||||||||||||||| あなたはそれに慣れていますか-1インチからでもそれを見るので、私はその仮定にまったく慣れていません。 I think it’s odious. |||hateful いやらしいです。 Eu acho odioso. And I also think it’s dangerous, and I don’t want to see it perpetuated into the next century. そしてそれは危険だとも思いますし、次の世紀にそれが永続するのを見たくありません。 I think it’s better if we encourage our great creative minds to live. 私たちの素晴らしい創造的な心が生きることを奨励した方がいいと思います。 And I definitely know that, in my case -- in my situation -- it would be very dangerous for me to start sort of leaking down that dark path of assumption, particularly given the circumstance that I’m in right now in my career. Y definitivamente sé que, en mi caso, en mi situación, sería muy peligroso para mí comenzar a filtrarme por ese camino oscuro de suposición, particularmente dada la circunstancia en la que me encuentro ahora en mi carrera. そして、私の場合、私の状況では、特に私が今のキャリアの中で現在の状況を考えると、暗い仮定の道を漏れ出すのは非常に危険であることは間違いありません。 E eu definitivamente sei que, no meu caso - na minha situação - seria muito perigoso para mim começar a percorrer esse caminho sombrio de suposição, particularmente considerando a circunstância em que estou agora na minha carreira.

Which is -- you know, like check it out, I’m pretty young, I’m only about 40 years old. Lo cual es... ya sabes, mira, soy bastante joven, solo tengo unos 40 años. I still have maybe another four decades of work left in me. Todavía me quedan quizás otras cuatro décadas de trabajo. And it’s exceedingly likely that anything I write from this point forward is going to be judged by the world as the work that came after the freakish success of my last book, right? ||very||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Y es muy probable que todo lo que escriba a partir de este momento sea juzgado por el mundo como el trabajo que vino después del extraño éxito de mi último libro, ¿verdad? E é extremamente provável que qualquer coisa que eu escreva deste ponto em diante seja julgada pelo mundo como o trabalho que veio após o sucesso bizarro do meu último livro, certo? I should just put it bluntly, because we’re all sort of friends here now -- it’s exceedingly likely that my greatest success is behind me. Debo decirlo sin rodeos, porque todos somos una especie de amigos aquí ahora, es muy probable que mi mayor éxito haya quedado atrás. 私たちは今ここにいるすべての種類の友達なので、私は率直に言っておくべきです-私の最大の成功が私の後ろにある可能性は非常に高いです。 Devo apenas ser franco, porque somos todos os tipos de amigos aqui agora - é extremamente provável que meu maior sucesso esteja atrás de mim. Oh, so Jesus, what a thought! ¡Oh, Jesús, qué pensamiento! ああ、そうイエス様、なんて考えたのでしょう! Oh, então Jesus, que pensamento! You know that’s the kind of thought that could lead a person to start drinking gin at nine o’clock in the morning, and I don’t want to go there. あなたはそれが人が朝の9時にジンを飲み始めるように導くかもしれない種類の考えであり、私はそこに行きたくないのです。 Você sabe que esse é o tipo de pensamento que poderia levar uma pessoa a começar a beber gim às nove da manhã, e eu não quero ir para lá. (Laughter) I would prefer to keep doing this work that I love. (笑)大好きなこの仕事を続けたいです。 And so, the question becomes, how? そして、問題はどのようになりますか?

And so, it seems to me, upon a lot of reflection, that the way that I have to work now, in order to continue writing, is that I have to create some sort of protective psychological construct, right? Entonces, después de mucha reflexión, me parece que la forma en que tengo que trabajar ahora, para poder seguir escribiendo, es que tengo que crear algún tipo de construcción psicológica protectora, ¿no? だから、私は、多くの反省から、執筆を続けるために今私が働かなければならない方法は、ある種の保護的な心理的構成要素を作成しなければならないことだと思いますよね? E assim, parece-me, com muita reflexão, que o jeito que tenho que trabalhar agora, para continuar escrevendo, é que tenho que criar algum tipo de construto psicológico protetor, certo? I have to, sort of find some way to have a safe distance between me, as I am writing, and my very natural anxiety about what the reaction to that writing is going to be, from now on. Tengo que encontrar alguna manera de tener una distancia segura entre mí, mientras escribo, y mi ansiedad muy natural sobre cuál será la reacción a esa escritura, de ahora en adelante. 私は、書いている間、自分との間の安全な距離を確保するための何らかの方法を見つける必要があり、その執筆に対する反応がこれからどうなるのかについての私の自然な不安感があります。 Eu tenho que encontrar uma maneira de ter uma distância segura entre mim, enquanto estou escrevendo, e minha ansiedade muito natural sobre qual será a reação a essa escrita, a partir de agora. And, as I’ve been looking over the last year for models for how to do that I’ve been sort of looking across time, and I’ve been trying to find other societies to see if they might have had better and saner ideas than we have about how to help creative people, sort of manage the inherent emotional risks of creativity. Y, a medida que estuve buscando modelos durante el último año sobre cómo hacer eso, estuve mirando a través del tiempo, y he estado tratando de encontrar otras sociedades para ver si podrían haber tenido ideas mejores y más sensatas. de lo que tenemos sobre cómo ayudar a las personas creativas, a manejar los riesgos emocionales inherentes a la creatividad. そして、私は昨年、その方法のモデルを探していたので、時間をかけて探していたのですが、他の社会を見つけて、彼らがよりよく、より健全なアイデアを持っていたかどうかを確認しようと努めてきました私たちがクリエイティブな人々を助ける方法について持っているよりも、創造性の固有の感情的なリスクを管理するのです E, como eu tenho procurado no ano passado modelos de como fazer isso, eu tenho procurado ao longo do tempo, e eu tenho tentado encontrar outras sociedades para ver se elas poderiam ter idéias melhores e mais saudáveis do que temos sobre como ajudar pessoas criativas, meio que gerenciar os riscos emocionais inerentes à criatividade. And that search has led me to ancient Greece and ancient Rome. そして、その調査は私を古代ギリシャと古代ローマに導きました。 E essa pesquisa me levou à Grécia antiga e à Roma antiga.

So stay with me, because it does circle around and back. だから私と一緒にいてください。 But, ancient Greece and ancient Rome -- people did not happen to believe that creativity came from human beings back then, OK? しかし、古代ギリシャと古代ローマ-創造性は当時人間から生まれたものだと人々は信じていませんでしたね。 People believed that creativity was this divine attendant spirit that came to human beings from some distant and unknowable source, for distant and unknowable reasons. 人々は、創造性は、遠方で未知の理由により、遠方で未知のソースから人間にもたらされたこの神の付随的精神であると信じていました。 The Greeks famously called these divine attendant spirits of creativity "daemons." ギリシャ人は有名にこれらの神の付随的な精神を「デーモン」と呼びました。 Os gregos chamavam famosos esses espíritos divinos da criatividade "daemons". Socrates, famously, believed that he had a daemon who spoke wisdom to him from afar. 有名なソクラテスは、遠くから知恵を話すデーモンがいると信じていました。 Sócrates, famosa, acreditava que ele tinha um daemon que lhe falou sabedoria de longe. The Romans had the same idea, but they called that sort of disembodied creative spirit a genius. ローマ人も同じ考えを持っていましたが、彼らはそのような具体化されていない創造的な精神を天才と呼びました。 Os romanos tiveram a mesma idéia, mas chamaram esse tipo de espírito criativo desencarnado de gênio. Which is great, because the Romans did not actually think that a genius was a particularly clever individual. これは素晴らしいことです。なぜなら、ローマ人は実際には天才は特に賢い人だとは考えていなかったからです。 They believed that a genius was this, sort of magical divine entity, who was believed to literally live in the walls of an artist’s studio, kind of like Dobby the house elf, and who would come out and sort of invisibly assist the artist with their work and would shape the outcome of that work. Creían que era un genio, una especie de entidad divina mágica, que se creía que literalmente vivía en las paredes del estudio de un artista, algo así como Dobby, el elfo doméstico, y que saldría y ayudaría de forma invisible al artista con su trabajo y daría forma al resultado de ese trabajo. 彼らは天才はこの魔法のような神聖な実体であり、文字通りアーティストのスタジオの壁に住んでいると信じられていました。仕事し、その仕事の結果を形作るでしょう。 So brilliant -- there it is, right there that distance that I’m talking about -- that psychological construct to protect you from the results of your work. とても素晴らしい-そこにあります、私が話しているその距離があります-あなたの仕事の結果からあなたを守るための心理的な構造。

And everyone knew that this is how it functioned, right? そして、誰もがこれがどのように機能するかを知っていましたよね? So the ancient artist was protected from certain things, like, for example, too much narcissism, right? つまり、古代の芸術家は、ナルシシズムが多すぎるなど、特定のものから保護されていましたね? Então o artista antigo estava protegido de certas coisas, como, por exemplo, muito narcisismo, certo? If your work was brilliant you couldn’t take all the credit for it, everybody knew that you had this disembodied genius who had helped you. あなたの仕事が素晴らしかったなら、あなたはそれのすべてを信用することができませんでした、誰もがあなたがあなたを助けたこの体現されていない天才を持っていることを知っていました。 If your work bombed, not entirely your fault, you know? Si tu trabajo fracasó, no es del todo culpa tuya, ¿sabes? あなたの仕事が爆破された場合、完全にあなたの責任ではありませんか? Everyone knew your genius was kind of lame. 誰もがあなたの天才がちょっと不自由だったことを知っていました。 Todo mundo sabia que seu gênio era meio idiota. And this is how people thought about creativity in the West for a really long time. そして、これは人々が西洋の創造性について長い間考えてきた方法です。 And then the Renaissance came and everything changed, and we had this big idea, and the big idea was let’s put the individual human being at the center of the universe above all gods and mysteries, and there’s no more room for mystical creatures who take dictation from the divine. そしてルネサンスが訪れ、すべてが変化し、私たちはこの大きなアイデアを持っていました。大きなアイデアは、個々の人間をすべての神々と謎の上に宇宙の中心に置き、口述を取る神秘的な生き物のための余地はもうないということでした神から。 E então o Renascimento chegou e tudo mudou, e tivemos uma grande ideia, e a grande ideia foi colocar o ser humano individual no centro do universo acima de todos os deuses e mistérios, e não há mais espaço para criaturas místicas que tomam o ditado do divino.

And it’s the beginning of rational humanism, and people started to believe that creativity came completely from the self of the individual. そしてそれは合理的なヒューマニズムの始まりであり、人々は創造性が完全に個人の自己から生まれたものであると信じ始めました。 And for the first time in history, you start to hear people referring to this or that artist as being a genius rather than having a genius. そして、史上初めて、このアーティストまたはそのアーティストを天才ではなく天才であると呼ぶ人々の声を聞くようになります。 And I got to tell you, I think that was a huge error. そして、私はあなたに言わなければならない、それは大きなエラーだったと思います。

You know, I think that allowing somebody, one mere person to believe that he or she is like, the vessel you know, like the font and the essence and the source of all divine, creative, unknowable, eternal mystery is just a smidge too much responsibility to put on one fragile, human psyche. ||||||||one single||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Sabes, creo que permitir que alguien, una mera persona, crea que él o ella es como, el recipiente que conoces, como la fuente y la esencia y la fuente de todo misterio divino, creativo, incognoscible y eterno es solo una pizca también. mucha responsabilidad para poner en una frágil psique humana. Você sabe, eu acho que permitir que alguém, uma mera pessoa, acredite que ele é, o vaso que você conhece, como a fonte, a essência e a fonte de todo o mistério divino, criativo, incognoscível e eterno, também é apenas um pouco. muita responsabilidade de colocar uma psique humana frágil. It’s like asking somebody to swallow the sun. それは誰かに太陽を飲み込むように求めるようなものです。 It just completely warps and distorts egos, and it creates all these unmanageable expectations about performance. Simplemente deforma y distorsiona completamente los egos, y crea todas estas expectativas inmanejables sobre el desempeño. それはエゴを完全にゆがめて歪ませるだけであり、パフォーマンスに関するこれらすべての管理できない期待を生み出します。 Apenas distorce completamente e distorce os egos, e cria todas essas expectativas incontroláveis sobre desempenho. And I think the pressure of that has been killing off our artists for the last 500 years. Y creo que la presión de eso ha estado matando a nuestros artistas durante los últimos 500 años. そして、そのプレッシャーが過去500年間、アーティストを殺害してきたと思います。 And, if this is true, and I think it is true, the question becomes, what now? そして、これが本当であり、私が本当だと思う場合、問題は何になりますか?

Can we do this differently? これを別の方法で実行できますか? Maybe go back to some more ancient understanding about the relationship between humans and the creative mystery. 人間と創造の謎との関係について、もっと古くからの理解に戻るかもしれません。 Maybe not. そうでないかもしれない。 Maybe we can’t just erase 500 years of rational humanistic thought in one 18 minute speech. たぶん、18分のスピーチで500年の合理的な人道的思考を消すことはできないでしょう。 And there’s probably people in this audience who would raise really legitimate scientific suspicions about the notion of, basically fairies who follow people around rubbing fairy juice on their projects and stuff. そしておそらく、この聴衆の中には、プロジェクトやものについて妖精のジュースをこすり回す周りの人々をフォローする妖精たちの概念について、本当に正当な科学的疑いを提起する人々がいるでしょう。 E provavelmente há pessoas nessa platéia que levantariam suspeitas científicas realmente legítimas sobre a noção de basicamente fadas que seguem pessoas por aí esfregando suco de fada em seus projetos e outras coisas. I’m not, probably, going to bring you all along with me on this. Probablemente no voy a llevarte conmigo en esto. たぶん、これについてあなたと一緒に連れて行くつもりはありません。 But the question that I kind of want to pose is -- you know, why not? しかし、私が提起したいのは、なぜですか? Mas a pergunta que eu meio que quero fazer é - você sabe, por que não?

Why not think about it this way? このように考えてみませんか? Because it makes as much sense as anything else I have ever heard in terms of explaining the utter maddening capriciousness of the creative process. ||||||||||||||||||||whimsical nature|||| Porque tiene tanto sentido como cualquier otra cosa que haya escuchado en términos de explicar el capricho enloquecedor total del proceso creativo. それは、クリエイティブプロセスの気まぐれな気まぐれさを説明するという点で、私が今まで聞いた他の何よりも理にかなっているからです。 Porque faz tanto sentido quanto qualquer outra coisa que eu já ouvi em termos de explicar a caprichos absolutamente enlouquecedora do processo criativo. A process which, as anybody who has ever tried to make something -- which is to say basically, everyone here --- knows does not always behave rationally. Un proceso que, como cualquiera que haya intentado alguna vez hacer algo, es decir, básicamente, todos aquí saben, no siempre se comporta de manera racional. これまでに何かを作ろうとしたことのある人、つまり基本的にはここの全員が知っているプロセスは、常に合理的に動作するとは限りません。 And, in fact, can sometimes feel downright paranormal. Y, de hecho, a veces puede sentirse francamente paranormal. そして、実際には、時々実に超常現象を感じることができます。 E, de fato, às vezes pode parecer absolutamente paranormal. I had this encounter recently where I met the extraordinary American poet Ruth Stone, who’s now in her 90s, but she’s been a poet her entire life and she told me that when she was growing up in rural Virginia, she would be out working in the fields, and she said she would feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape. Recientemente tuve este encuentro donde conocí a la extraordinaria poeta estadounidense Ruth Stone, que ahora tiene 90 años, pero ha sido poeta toda su vida y me dijo que cuando creciera en la zona rural de Virginia, estaría trabajando en el campos, y ella dijo que sentiría y escucharía un poema viniendo hacia ella desde el paisaje. 私は最近この出会いがあり、私は90年代に現在いる特別なアメリカの詩人ルースストーンに会いましたが、彼女は生涯詩人であり、バージニア州の田舎で育っていたとき、彼女はフィールド、そして彼女は彼女が風景の上から彼女に向かって来る詩を感じて聞くだろうと言いました。

And she said it was like a thunderous train of air. Y ella dijo que era como un atronador tren de aire. そして、それは雷のような空気の列車のようだったと言いました。 E ela disse que era como um trem aéreo estrondoso. And it would come barreling down at her over the landscape. Y vendría a toda velocidad hacia ella sobre el paisaje. そして、それは彼女を横切ってバレルダウンするでしょう。 E isso a derrubaria sobre a paisagem. And she felt it coming, because it would shake the earth under her feet. E ela sentiu que estava chegando, porque agitaria a terra sob seus pés. She knew that she had only one thing to do at that point, and that was to, in her words, "run like hell." Sabía que solo tenía una cosa que hacer en ese momento, y eso era, en sus palabras, "correr como el infierno". And she would run like hell to the house and she would be getting chased by this poem, and the whole deal was that she had to get to a piece of paper and a pencil fast enough so that when it thundered through her, she could collect it and grab it on the page. Y ella corría como el demonio a la casa y sería perseguida por este poema, y todo era que tenía que conseguir un pedazo de papel y un lápiz lo suficientemente rápido para que cuando retumbara a través de ella, pudiera recogerlo. y agarrarlo en la página. And other times she wouldn’t be fast enough, so she’d be running and running and running, and she wouldn’t get to the house and the poem would barrel through her and she would miss it and she said it would continue on across the landscape, looking, as she put it "for another poet." Y otras veces no era lo suficientemente rápida, así que corría y corría y corría, y no llegaba a la casa y el poema la atravesaba y se lo perdía y decía que continuaría. a través del paisaje, buscando, como ella dijo, "otro poeta". そして、他の時には彼女は十分に速くなかったので、彼女は走って走っていて走っていました、そして彼女は家に着かず、そして詩は彼女を通してバレルし、彼女はそれを逃し、そしてそれは継続すると言いました彼女がそれを「別の詩人のために」置いたように、景色を横切って、見てください。 E outras vezes ela não era rápida o suficiente, então ela estava correndo, correndo e correndo, e ela não chegava à casa e o poema passava por ela, ela sentia falta disso e disse que continuaria. através da paisagem, olhando, como ela dizia "por outro poeta". And then there were these times -- this is the piece I never forgot -- she said that there were moments where she would almost miss it, right? So, she’s running to the house and she’s looking for the paper and the poem passes through her, and she grabs a pencil just as it’s going through her, and then she said, it was like she would reach out with her other hand and she would catch it. Então, ela está correndo para a casa e está procurando o papel e o poema passa por ela, e ela pega um lápis no momento em que a atravessa, e então ela diz: é como se ela fosse estender a mão e ela pegaria. She would catch the poem by its tail, and she would pull it backwards into her body as she was transcribing on the page. Ela pegava o poema pelo rabo e puxava-o para trás em seu corpo enquanto transcrevia na página. And in these instances, the poem would come up on the page perfect and intact but backwards, from the last word to the first. E nesses casos, o poema apareceria na página perfeito e intacto, mas para trás, da última palavra à primeira. (Laughter) So when I heard that I was like -- that’s uncanny, that’s exactly what my creative process is like. |||||||||strange similarity|||||||| Então, quando soube que eu era assim - isso é estranho, é exatamente assim que é o meu processo criativo.

(Laughter) That’s not all what my creative process is -- I’m not the pipeline! |||||||||||conduit Isso não é tudo o que meu processo criativo é - eu não sou o pipeline!

I’m a mule, and the way that I have to work is that I have to get up at the same time every day, and sweat and labor and barrel through it really awkwardly. ||a hard worker|||||||||||||||||||||||||||push|||| Soy una mula, y la forma en que tengo que trabajar es que tengo que levantarme a la misma hora todos los días, y sudar, esforzarme y atravesarlo muy torpemente. Eu sou uma mula, e o jeito que tenho que trabalhar é que tenho que acordar todos os dias à mesma hora, e suor, trabalho e cansa-lo de maneira realmente desajeitada. But even I, in my mulishness, even I have brushed up against that thing, at times. Pero incluso yo, en mi terquedad, incluso yo me he rozado contra esa cosa, a veces. Mas até eu, em minha estupidez, até me encostou a essa coisa, às vezes. And I would imagine that a lot of you have too. You know, even I have had work or ideas come through me from a source that I honestly cannot identify. And what is that thing? And how are we to relate to it in a way that will not make us lose our minds, but, in fact, might actually keep us sane? そして、どのようにして、私たちの心を失わせないように、しかし実際には、私たちを正気に保つことができるような方法でそれに関係するのでしょうか? E como devemos nos relacionar com isso de uma maneira que não nos faça perder a cabeça, mas que, de fato, possa nos manter sãos? And for me, the best contemporary example that I have of how to do that is the musician Tom Waits, who I got to interview several years ago on a magazine assignment. E para mim, o melhor exemplo contemporâneo que tenho de como fazer isso é o músico Tom Waits, que entrevistei há vários anos em uma revista.

And we were talking about this, and you know, Tom, for most of his life he was pretty much the embodiment of the tormented contemporary modern artist, trying to control and manage and dominate these sort of uncontrollable creative impulses that were totally internalized. |||||||||||||||||||||||anguished|||||||||||||||||||| E estávamos conversando sobre isso, e você sabe, Tom, durante a maior parte de sua vida ele foi praticamente a personificação do ator atormentado artista moderno contemporâneo, tentando controlar, gerenciar e dominar esse tipo de impulsos criativos incontroláveis que foram totalmente internalizados. But then he got older, he got calmer, and one day he was driving down the freeway in Los Angeles he told me, and this is when it all changed for him. しかし、彼は年を取り、落ち着き、ある日彼はロサンゼルスの高速道路を運転していたと私に言った、そしてそれがすべてが彼のために変わったときだ。 Mas então ele ficou mais velho, ficou mais calmo e um dia ele estava dirigindo pela estrada em Los Angeles, ele me disse, e foi aí que tudo mudou para ele.

And he’s speeding along, and all of a sudden he hears this little fragment of melody, that comes into his head as inspiration often comes, elusive and tantalizing, and he wants it, you know, it’s gorgeous, and he longs for it, but he has no way to get it. Y va a toda velocidad, y de repente escucha este pequeño fragmento de melodía, que le viene a la cabeza como a menudo llega la inspiración, escurridiza y tentadora, y él la quiere, ya sabes, es hermosa, y la anhela, pero no tiene forma de conseguirlo. そして、彼はスピードを上げており、突然メロディーのこの小さな断片が聞こえてきます。インスピレーションはしばしばとらえどころがなく、食欲をそそります。彼はそれを望んでいます。彼にはそれを手に入れる方法がありません。 E ele está acelerando, e de repente ele ouve esse pequeno fragmento de melodia, que vem à sua mente à medida que a inspiração vem, evasiva e tentadora, e ele quer, você sabe, é lindo, e ele deseja, mas ele não tem como conseguir. He doesn’t have a piece of paper, he doesn’t have a pencil, he doesn’t have a tape recorder. 彼は紙を持っていません、彼は鉛筆を持っていません、彼はテープレコーダーを持っていません。 So he starts to feel all of that old anxiety start to rise in him like, "I’m going to lose this thing, and then I’m going to be haunted by this song forever. それで彼はその古い不安のすべてが彼の中で上昇し始めていると感じ始めます。

I’m not good enough, and I can’t do it." 私は十分ではなく、それを行うことはできません。」 Não sou bom o suficiente e não posso fazer isso. " And instead of panicking, he just stopped. そして、慌てる代わりに、彼はただ止まった。 He just stopped that whole mental process and he did something completely novel. 彼はその精神プロセス全体を止めただけで、まったく新しいことをしました。 Ele simplesmente interrompeu todo esse processo mental e fez algo completamente novo. He just looked up at the sky, and he said, "Excuse me, can you not see that I’m driving?" 彼は空を見上げたところ、「すみません、私が運転しているのが見えませんか?」 (Laughter) "Do I look like I can write down a song right now? (笑い)「今、曲を書けるように見えますか? (Risos) "Parece que posso escrever uma música agora? If you really want to exist, come back at a more opportune moment when I can take care of you. あなたが本当に存在したいのなら、私があなたの面倒を見ることができるより適切な瞬間に戻ってください。 Se você realmente quer existir, volte em um momento mais oportuno em que eu possa cuidar de você. Otherwise, go bother somebody else today. それ以外の場合は、今日誰かに迷惑をかけてください。 Caso contrário, vá incomodar alguém hoje. Go bother Leonard Cohen. 気になるレナード・コーエン。 Vá incomodar Leonard Cohen. And his whole work process changed after that. その後、彼の全作業プロセスは変化しました。 E todo o seu processo de trabalho mudou depois disso.

Not the work, the work was still oftentimes as dark as ever. 作品ではなく、作品はまだいつものように暗かった。 Não era o trabalho, o trabalho ainda era muitas vezes mais sombrio do que nunca. But the process, and the heavy anxiety around it was released when he took the genie, the genius out of him where it was causing nothing but trouble, and released it kind of back where it came from, and realized that this didn’t have to be this internalized, tormented thing. Pero el proceso, y la gran ansiedad que lo rodeaba, se liberaron cuando sacó el genio, el genio que estaba dentro de él, donde no estaba causando más que problemas, y lo soltó de nuevo de donde procedía, y se dio cuenta de que esto no tenía nada que ver. ser esta cosa internalizada y atormentada. しかし、プロセスとその周りの重い不安は、彼が魔神を奪ったときに解放され、天才はそれを問題の原因にしていた場所から解放し、それがどこから来たかのように解放しました。この内面化され、苦しめられたものになるために。 It could be this peculiar, wondrous, bizarre collaboration kind of conversation between Tom and the strange, external thing that was not quite Tom. Podría ser este tipo de conversación de colaboración peculiar, maravillosa y extraña entre Tom y la cosa extraña y externa que no era del todo Tom. それは、トムとまったくトムではない奇妙な外的なものとの間の、この奇妙で不思議で奇妙なコラボレーションのような会話かもしれません。 So when I heard that story it started to shift a little bit the way that I worked too, and it already saved me once. だから、その話を聞いたとき、私の仕事のやり方も少し変わってきて、すでに一度は助かりました。

This idea, it saved me when I was in the middle of writing "Eat, Pray, Love," and I fell into one of those, sort of pits of despair that we all fall into when we’re working on something and it’s not coming and you start to think this is going to be a disaster, this is going to be the worst book ever written. このアイデアは、「食べる、祈る、愛」を書いている最中に私を救いました。私は何かに取り組んでいるときに私たち全員が陥る、絶望のピットのようなものに陥りました。来て、あなたはこれが災害になるだろうと思い始めます、これはこれまでに書かれた最悪の本になるでしょう。 Not just bad, but the worst book ever written. 悪いだけでなく、これまでに書かれた最悪の本。 Não é apenas ruim, mas o pior livro já escrito. And I started to think I should just dump this project. Y comencé a pensar que debería simplemente tirar este proyecto. そして、私はこのプロジェクトをただ捨てるべきだと思い始めました。 E comecei a pensar que deveria apenas despejar este projeto. But then I remembered Tom talking to the open air and I tried it. でも、トムが戸外で話しているのを覚えて、それを試しました。 So I just lifted my face up from the manuscript and I directed my comments to an empty corner of the room. それで、私は原稿から顔を持ち上げ、コメントを部屋の何もない隅に向けました。 And I said aloud, "Listen you, thing, you and I both know that if this book isn’t brilliant that is not entirely my fault, right? そして私は声を出して言った、「あなたを聞いてください、あなたと私は両方とも、この本が素晴らしいものでなければ、それは完全に私のせいではありませんよね? E eu disse em voz alta: "Escute, você e eu sabemos que se este livro não for brilhante, isso não é totalmente minha culpa, certo? Because you can see that I am putting everything I have into this, I don’t have anymore than this. 私が持っているすべてのものをこれに入れていることがわかるので、これ以上はありません。 Porque você pode ver que estou colocando tudo o que tenho nisso, não tenho mais do que isso. So if you want it to be better, then you’ve got to show up and do your part of the deal. それであなたがそれをもっと良くしたいなら、あなたは現れて取引のあなたの役割をしなければなりません。 OK. OK。 But if you don’t do that, you know what, the hell with it. しかし、それをしなければ、何をしているのか、それが一体何なのかを知っています。 Mas se você não fizer isso, sabe o que diabos é isso. I’m going to keep writing anyway because that’s my job. とにかく書いていきます。 And I would please like the record to reflect today that I showed up for my part of the job." Y me gustaría que el registro refleje hoy que me presenté para mi parte del trabajo". そして、私がその職に現れた今日の記録を反映させてほしい。」 (Laughter) Because -- (Applause) in the end it’s like this, OK -- centuries ago in the deserts of North Africa, people used to gather for these moonlight dances of sacred dance and music that would go on for hours and hours, until dawn. 何百年も前に北アフリカの砂漠で-(拍手)結局それはそうです-人々はかつて夜明けまで何時間も続く神聖なダンスと音楽のこれらの月光のダンスのために集まりました。

And they were always magnificent, because the dancers were professionals and they were terrific, right? そして、彼らは常に素晴らしかった、なぜならダンサーはプロであり、彼らは素晴らしかったからでしょ? E eles sempre foram magníficos, porque os dançarinos eram profissionais e eles eram ótimos, certo? But every once in a while, very rarely, something would happen, and one of these performers would actually become transcendent. |||||||||||||||||||extraordinary しかし、時々、非常にまれに、何かが起こり、これらのパフォーマーの1人が実際に超越的になることがありました。 And I know you know what I’m talking about, because I know you’ve all seen, at some point in your life, a performance like this. そして、私はあなたが私が話していることを知っていることを知っています。なぜなら、あなたは皆、あなたの人生のある時点で、このようなパフォーマンスを見てきたことを知っているからです。 It was like time would stop, and the dancer would sort of step through some kind of portal and he wasn’t doing anything different than he had ever done, 1,000 nights before, but everything would align. それはまるで時間が止まるようなもので、ダンサーはなんらかのポータルを一歩踏み出して、1,000夜前にやったことと何も変わらなかったが、すべてが揃った。 And all of a sudden, he would no longer appear to be merely human. そして突然、彼はもはや単なる人間のようには見えなくなりました。 E, de repente, ele não parecia mais ser meramente humano. He would be lit from within, and lit from below and all lit up on fire with divinity. 彼は内側から照らされ、下から照らされ、すべて神聖な炎で照らされました。 Ele seria iluminado por dentro e iluminado por baixo e todo iluminado em chamas com a divindade. And when this happened, back then, people knew it for what it was, you know, they called it by it’s name. Y cuando esto sucedió, en aquel entonces, la gente lo sabía por lo que era, ya sabes, lo llamaban por su nombre. そして、これが起こったとき、人々はそれが何であるかを知っていました、彼らはそれを名前で呼びました。

They would put their hands together and they would start to chant, "Allah, Allah, Allah, God God, God." 彼らは手を合わせて、「アッラー、アッラー、アッラー、神、神、神」と唱え始めました。 Eles colocavam as mãos juntas e começavam a cantar: "Alá, Alá, Alá, Deus Deus, Deus". That’s God, you know. Curious historical footnote -- when the Moors invaded southern Spain, they took this custom with them and the pronunciation changed over the centuries from "Allah, Allah, Allah," to "Ole, ole, ole," which you still hear in bullfights and in flamenco dances. Nota histórica curiosa: cuando los moros invadieron el sur de España, se llevaron esta costumbre y la pronunciación cambió a lo largo de los siglos de "Allah, Allah, Allah" a "Ole, ole, ole", que todavía se escucha en las corridas de toros y en los bailes flamencos. 奇妙な歴史的脚注-ムーア人がスペイン南部を侵略したとき、彼らはこの習慣を彼らとともに持ち、発音は何世紀にもわたって「アッラー、アッラー、アッラー」から「オレ、オレ、オレ」に変わりました。フラメンコダンスで。 In Spain, when a performer has done something impossible and magic, "Allah, ole, ole, Allah, magnificent, bravo," incomprehensible, there it is -- a glimpse of God. En España, cuando un ejecutante ha hecho algo imposible y mágico, "Allah, ole, ole, Allah, magnífico, bravo", incomprensible, ahí está: un atisbo de Dios. スペインでは、パフォーマーが不可能なことや不思議なこと、「アッラー、オレ、オレ、アッラー、壮大なブラボー」を理解できないとき、そこには、神の垣間があります。 Na Espanha, quando um artista faz algo impossível e mágico, "Allah, ole, ole, Allah, magnífico, bravo", incompreensível, aí está - um vislumbre de Deus. Which is great, because we need that. それが必要なので、これは素晴らしいことです。 But, the tricky bit comes the next morning, for the dancer himself, when he wakes up and discovers that it’s Tuesday at 11 a.m., and he’s no longer a glimpse of God. しかし、翌朝、ダンサー自身が目を覚ますと、火曜日の午前11時であり、もはや神を垣間見ることはできません。 Mas, a parte complicada chega na manhã seguinte, para o próprio dançarino, quando ele acorda e descobre que é terça-feira às 11 horas da manhã, e ele não é mais um vislumbre de Deus.

He’s just an aging mortal with really bad knees, and maybe he’s never going to ascend to that height again. 彼はひどくひざのある老化した人間であり、多分彼は二度とその高さに上昇するつもりはないだろう。 Ele é apenas um mortal envelhecido com joelhos muito ruins e talvez nunca mais suba a essa altura novamente. And maybe nobody will ever chant God’s name again as he spins, and what is he then to do with the rest of his life? そして、おそらく彼が回転するときに誰も二度と神の名前を唱えることはないでしょう、そして彼はその後彼の生涯と何をするでしょうか? E talvez ninguém jamais cante o nome de Deus novamente enquanto ele gira, e o que ele fará com o resto de sua vida? This is hard. これは難しいです。 This is one of the most painful reconciliations to make in a creative life. これは、創造的な人生のなかで最も苦痛な和解の1つです。 But maybe it doesn’t have to be quite so full of anguish if you never happened to believe, in the first place, that the most extraordinary aspects of your being came from you. しかし、たぶん、そもそも、あなたの存在の最も異常な側面があなたから来ていると信じることがなかったとしても、それほど苦痛に満ちている必要はないでしょう。 Mas talvez não tenha que ser tão cheio de angústia se você nunca acreditou, em primeiro lugar, que os aspectos mais extraordinários do seu ser vieram de você. But maybe if you just believed that they were on loan to you from some unimaginable source for some exquisite portion of your life to be passed along when you’re finished, with somebody else. しかし、もしあなたが、想像を絶するような情報源からあなたに貸し出されていて、あなたが終わったときにあなたの人生のある絶妙な部分が他の誰かと一緒に渡されていると信じているなら。 Mas talvez se você apenas acreditasse que eles lhe estavam emprestados de alguma fonte inimaginável para que uma parte requintada de sua vida fosse passada quando você terminar, com outra pessoa. And, you know, if we think about it this way it starts to change everything. そして、ご存知のように、私たちがこのように考えると、すべてを変え始めます。 This is how I’ve started to think, and this is certainly how I’ve been thinking in the last few months as I’ve been working on the book that will soon be published, as the dangerously, frighteningly overanticipated follow up to my freakish success. Así es como comencé a pensar, y ciertamente así es como he estado pensando en los últimos meses mientras trabajaba en el libro que pronto se publicará, como la continuación peligrosa y aterradoramente anticipada de mi éxito monstruoso. これは私が考え始めた方法であり、これは私がこの先数か月で考えていた方法であり、私はすぐに出版される本に取り組んできました。気まぐれな成功。 Foi assim que comecei a pensar, e é certamente assim que tenho pensado nos últimos meses, pois tenho trabalhado no livro que será publicado em breve, como o acompanhamento antecipadamente perigoso, assustadoramente sucesso esquisito.

And what I have to, sort of keep telling myself when I get really psyched out about that, is, don’t be afraid. Y lo que tengo que seguir diciéndome a mí mismo cuando me emociono mucho con eso es que no tengas miedo. そして、私がしなければならないことは、それについて本当に気が狂ったときに自分に言い聞かせ続けることです。恐れることはありません。 E o que eu preciso, tipo de continuar dizendo a mim mesma quando eu ficar realmente empolgado com isso, é, não tenha medo.

Don’t be daunted. ||Nu te descuraja. No te desanimes. 恐れることはありません。 Não se assuste. Just do your job. ただあなたの仕事をしてください。 Continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that might be. |||||||||||ar putea fi| Continúe apareciendo por su parte, sea lo que sea. それが何であれ、それのあなたの部分のために現れ続けます。 Continue aparecendo para o seu pedaço, seja lá o que for. If your job is to dance, do your dance. あなたの仕事がダンスであるなら、あなたのダンスをしてください。 Se seu trabalho é dançar, faça sua dança. If the divine, cockeyed genius assigned to your case decides to let some sort of wonderment be glimpsed, for just one moment through your efforts, then "Ole!" ||||||||||||||||||||||||actions||Hooray Si el genio divino y torcido asignado a tu caso decide dejar entrever algún tipo de asombro, por solo un momento a través de tus esfuerzos, entonces "¡Ole!" あなたのケースに割り当てられた神聖な天才天才が、あなたの努力を通じて、ある種の不思議をほんの少しだけ垣間見ることを許可することを決定した場合、「Ole!」 Se o gênio divino e arrogante designado para o seu caso decidir deixar vislumbrar algum tipo de maravilha, por apenas um momento através de seus esforços, então "Ole!" And if not, do your dance anyhow. そして、そうでなければ、とにかくあなたのダンスをしてください。 And "Ole!" |cheer or exclamation そして「オレ!」 to you, nonetheless. a ti, sin embargo. それにもかかわらず、あなたに。 I believe this and I feel that we must teach it. Creo esto y siento que debemos enseñarlo. 私はこれを信じており、私たちはそれを教える必要があると感じています。 "Ole!" 「オレ!」 to you, nonetheless, just for having the sheer human love and stubbornness to keep showing up. a ti, sin embargo, solo por tener el puro amor humano y la terquedad de seguir apareciendo. それでもなお、純粋な人間の愛と頑固さを見せ続けるために。 para você, no entanto, apenas por ter o puro amor humano e teimosia para continuar aparecendo. Thank you.

(Applause) Thank you. (Applause) June Cohen: Ole!

(Applause)